Festive fiddling family
MacMaster Leahy family finishes Christmas tour at Centre 200
Christmas in the MacMasterLeahy household is pretty typical, says fiddling superstar Natalie MacMaster.
“It is the most tiring day of the year,” laughs the mother of six in a phone interview on Monday. “Donnell and I don’t usually get to bed until late because we’re preparing everything. Our rule is you’re not allowed to go downstairs before five o’clock.
Well, they start waking up at two — they run over to your bed and ask, ‘Is it five o’clock, mom?’
“They’re so excited. So I say ‘No, it’s not five o’clock yet. There’s still three more hours, go back to bed.’ So they go back to bed and a half-hour later, 2:30, somebody else wakes up. ‘Mom, is it five o’clock?’ There’s five of them anyway that keep waking up.”
And there isn’t much sleep before Christmas either. MacMaster and her husband Donnell Leahy and their children have been touring across the U.S. performing their Celtic Family Christmas shows, which showcases music from their “A Celtic Family Christmas” album. The tour will wind up Friday at Sydney’s Centre 200.
“It’s really going great. I’m very pleased — the things that you want to go well on a tour are No. 1, because we’re travelling as a family, you want that experience to always be positive,” says MacMaster. “Parents are concerned about their kids so all that’s going really well. They’re really enjoying themselves. It’s really awesome. And then the second thing you think of is the shows themselves. You want the music to be good and we’ve got a couple of new band members.
“The third thing you hope for are good ticket sales.”
Most of the American shows have been sold out and while sales have been good at Centre 200, there are still a few tickets available for anyone who hasn’t yet booked their seats.
For MacMaster, this will be a significant concert in her professional stage career.
“This is first time we’ll be playing Centre 200 under our own name and not part of another show so it’s a big deal for me — it’s really exciting,” she says. “That’s a venue in Sydney where I have done a lot of playing over the years so I am so proud to take my husband and our six children to that stage and just play for the people I value most and the people I respect the most and the tradition that shaped my whole being really and my musical creator in all of that so it has very deep meaning for me and I’m really, really excited about it and really looking forward to it.”
MacMaster and Leahy will feature their children, the MacMaster Leahy Kids, at the Centre 200 show. They appeared on the 2017 season of NBC’s “Little Big Shots” with Steve Harvey. The group is made up of siblings Mary Frances, 12, Michael, 10, Clare, 8, and Julia, 6. They all play fiddle and step dance. They are occasionally joined by their little brother Alec, 5, and in Sydney, the youngest, Sadie, 3, will make her first appearance.
“I am so proud to show her off. It will be her first time on the stage.”
While they’ll head back to their farm in Douro, Ont., immediately after the concert, MacMaster says there will be plenty of traditions that she will be passing on to her own children.
“Growing up in the home of Minnie and Allan MacMaster of Troy, Cape Breton, mom always made a turkey dinner and she’d usually make me tweed squares because I love tweed squares and she’d make chocolate coconut balls and so we make those things at our home now. The girls make the chocolate coconut balls and we usually pitch in on the dinner so nothing too crazy and wild.
“Just what mom taught.”